The heat from āratī lamps in the temple, the smoke and smell from camphor flames, the fresh colourful flowers, coconuts and bananas, priests and male devotees naked above the waist dressed for the warm climate of Sri Lanka, and the bright colours of the saris contrasted dramatically with the colourless and bitterly cold Norwegian winter outside. The sounds of bells and the joyful greeting of the gods by the congregation as they moved around the inside of the temple for the evening pūjā, following behind the priests who removed the curtain at one shrine after the other, bore witness of a Tamiḻ Hindu religious world – a Tamiḻ Hindu diasporic home away from home.

Introduction

A distinctive feature of Hinduism in Norway is the eagerness with which the Hindu population has established a large number of temples and temple organizations. In the last twenty years, eight Hindu temples with busy ritual calendars have been established in the largest cities of Norway, and in 2012 there were thirteen official Hindu religious organizations (Jacobsen 2011a). Most of them serve the around 12,000 Tamiḻ Hindus from Tamiḻ Īḻam (the Tamiḻ areas of Sri Lanka) living in Norway. The largest temple, Sivasubramaniyar Alayam in Oslo, was opened in 1998. The main purpose of these temples is to offer devotees the opportunity to participate in ritual traditions according to their needs on a daily, weekly, monthly, occasional or annual basis.